1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to decorative, upholstered panels and methods for their manufacture.
2. Brief Description of the Prior Art
The prior art literature is replete with descriptions of a wide variety of methods for the manufacture of upholstery panels, commonly used to upholster the interior of transportation vehicles such as automobiles, airplanes and the like. Representative of such descriptions is that found in U.S. Pat. No. 4,199,635.
In recent years, the automobile industry has been interested in padded upholstery panels with a decorative surface. For example, a door panel may be upholstered with a facing of carpeting material, imitation leather or a vinyl supported by an underlying layer of a polymeric resin foam. Prior to the present invention, panels of the type described above were made by bonding the various materials to a molded substrate in a multi-step operation. Bonding could be effected by the dielectric process, adhesives or like techniques. The substrate is normally cardboard, pressboard, injection molded polymeric resin sheets, non-woven sheets or the like.
The method of the present invention permits one to manufacture padded and upholstered panels having a decorative face. The joining, bonding and molding of the component parts takes place during a single molding step without the use of of adhesives, making for lower cost panels. The panels prepared by the process of the invention are esthetically acceptable and pleasing in appearance. The elimination of the use of glues and adhesives in their manufacture is also an advantage, reducing the hazards of solvents generally associated with the use of glues and adhesives.
In comparison to some prior art panels containing polymeric resins, the panels of the present invention are also advantageous in that they are relatively non-volatile, producing few gases which can condense and deposit on surfaces near their installation, for example, on the interior of an automobile. This phenomena has been observed in recent years and is considered a serious drawback to the use of certain polymeric resin panels in vehicle interiors.